Posted by
Steve on Monday, April 27, 2009 12:00:00 AM
Merriam Webster defines torture as: ” the infliction of intense pain (as from burning, crushing, or wounding) to punish, coerce, or afford sadistic pleasure”
Note the qualifiers…”to punish, coerce, or afford sadistic pleasure.”
Note that none of these definitions have anything to do with the legtimate military use of ANY method used specficially to gain information from prisoners. This entire debate over waterboarding has had just that ’surreal’ aspect to it that makes my head swim. Nitpicking over wheter waterboarding is or is not ‘torture’ is meaningless. In the context of legitimate military goals, waterboarding is not torture. In the context of a sadistic individual who seeks nothing more than the causing of pain, it IS torture.
The waterboarding used by the U.S. military is not torture. Neither is pulling out fingernails, if the purpose of using it was to gain legtimate military goals. Both ARE torture if there is no good reason for using either method of coercian.
Now, if a person wants to argue that pulling fingernails is ineffective in gaining information, and should be stopped, THAT is a legitimate argument…and I am sure the CIA would love to see the data to prove that. To suggest, however, that the CIA cannot use that method if the experience of the CIA has been that it IS effective is detrimental to the safety of our country.